May 05 2009
Empathy and the Supreme Court
Does anyone else think 24-hour news channels are the worst thing to happen to the world? Okay, perhaps not the world, but they can’t be a good thing. Though a great deal goes on in the world, it can be a never-ending challenge to fill up the hours with news.
You can already see the toll this has taken on the most conservative of networks.
Let me explain. The announcement by Supreme Court Justice David Souter has caused a media frenzy. It’s not the fact he wants to get back to his home; it’s the requirements President Obama has set forth for a suitable replacement.
What could Obama possibly want that is so objectionable? Does he want a Nazi? Does he want to find someone who will really stick it to religious organizations at every turn? Does he want someone whose evil ways are second only to the Antichrist himself?
Nope. He wants someone who will be empathetic to the plight of the people who come before the new Justice.
Uh-oh. Everyone get to your battle stations. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.
Empathy = Activism
If you’re anything like me then you didn’t get why this was apparently the end of life as we know it. It boils down to the fact that many conservatives feel empathy has no place in the Supreme Court. Justices are there to interpret the law without bias or prejudice. In that sense, they aren’t wrong.
But they aren’t right either.
They are people, first and foremost; not unfeeling legal machines. Like it or not, the law does have shades of gray to it. Those who penned the US Constitution could never have imagined what life would be like more than 200 later. They couldn’t know to write a document that would be all-encompassing for every situation. Even if they could know, the task they’d be left with would be impossible.
There is a very real difference between feeling compassion and mercy for those before you and bending the law to accommodate them. When I hear the president say he wants someone with empathy for people, I hear it as someone who cares enough about the little guy to do the right thing (when a case truly exists) and not bow down to the business interests of this country.
That isn’t what the right wing media hears. They hear abortion. They hear their chances of getting the landmark case of Roe v. Wade overturned.
I’m not going to sit here and preach about whether I think abortion is an awesome solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy. That’s not my place. The decision of whether to bring a child into the world belongs with the parents. Should it be as easy to have done as your semi-annual teeth cleaning? Probably not, but to make it illegal solves nothing. Women who don’t want to be pregnant with or without abortion as an option will find a way. They managed just fine before it was safe and legal.
Is condemning them to back alley abortion chop shops or “falling” down flights of stairs really in anyone’s best interest?
Better still…should the federal government have a say in individual family planning? Mightn’t their time be better spent with, say, making it easier to adopt children in the US than it is to go overseas to adopt? Just a thought, but when it’s easier and less expensive to fly to a third world country to adopt than it is to go to the local children’s home,well…you see my point.
What are your thoughts about the controversy of empathy in the Supreme Court?
Jen
“The difference? I make sarcasm look good.”
As we increase the availability of sex education and contraceptives, the number of abortions will decrease. Make abortion (for the most part) unnecessary, and suddenly only those situations already allowed by most conservatives - cases of rape, incest, or the health of the mother - will become the only times when it is needed.
The problem is getting the country to accept the need for sex education and available, inexpensive birth control - which the conservatives won’t do.
I think you’re oversimplifying the issue. Even people who have been educated and have access to contraceptives still have the “oops” moments. You can give away condoms and birth control pills like they’re candy and if the guys still don’t want to wear them then they aren’t going to. Likewise, if the women can’t remember to take their pills daily then it doesn’t matter.
As for the cases you listed of rape, incest, or the health of the mother…there are still a good many - perhaps too many - conservatives who would see abortion outlawed even in those situations.
I don’t think there’s simple solution to this one.
Empathy for the person affected by the law does not include the Supreme Cout rewriting the law and making something out of it that was not in the bill passed by Congress which put the law into effect. If a person has the law backing up their actions it is not for the Supreme Court to make a decision that disenfranchises the citizen who has abided by the law of our land and expects to be reinforced by the Supreme Court, not handed down a decision that may be the judge’s personal opinion that has nothing to do with the law passed by Congress because the justice does not agree with the law. The legislative branch must not be ignored by the judicial branch of the government. If the law is out of date and should be changed it should be by an amendment to the law by Congress, not a decision by the Supreme Court. The Court inteprets the laws based on law not on personal opinion regardless of empathy felt for a particular cause.
I understand your main point, but overall I want to specifically comment on your observation about TV. When the Iraq War broke, I got sucked in; watched TV 24/7. Getting rid of the TV for a semester in the post-anthrax environment was very freeing. It’s difficult, though–how do we balance the hype and conspiracy versus being informed?